Overview
- At the Digital Money Summit in London on May 19, former CFTC chair Timothy Massad said US officials are privately studying how to build CBDC-related infrastructure even though the White House has banned federal CBDC development.
- Project Agorá, a Bank for International Settlements initiative that includes the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has moved from design to prototype and expects a report in the first half of 2026 on tokenized commercial bank deposits and central bank reserves.
- Mark Gould, the Federal Reserve’s chief payments executive, told participants a digital dollar is not currently within the Fed’s remit but that any government-backed digital currency would fall under Fed oversight if introduced.
- President Trump issued an executive order in early 2025 prohibiting federal CBDC work and Congress has since advanced measures to limit or delay a US CBDC, including a Senate provision blocking issuance until at least 2030 and House moves to make the ban permanent.
- Stakeholders warn that growing international tokenization and stablecoin use could erode US influence over global payment rules and push officials to choose between formalizing a digital dollar or ceding technical standards to other jurisdictions.